


"Mastering the House"/ "MasterTapes"

by matrixrefugee



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-10-20 05:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17616830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixrefugee/pseuds/matrixrefugee
Summary: Two sketches of two faces of the Master...





	"Mastering the House"/ "MasterTapes"

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[fic_promptly](https://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/)'s [Doctor Who, the Master, The Master of the House.](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/146955.html?thread=6736395#cmt6736395) Double fill, featuring, first, Roberts!Master from the 1996 movie and second, Simm!Master from the revival series. These two got into my head and won't go away; I'm afraid they're in there plotting things...

So many memories, inside of this skin, so much clutter of thoughts and ideas. Not like a Time Lord mind. Humans seemed to recall the most trivial details of the most ordinary things, but perhaps their brains could not handle much more than the trivial and trite. This one at least possessed much knowledge of how the human body worked and how to maintain and repair it when it experienced damage, but even that knowledge seemed to extend only to the matter of preserving an injured or diseased human long enough to place it in more capable hands. Very well, this body would suffice for the time being. He intended for this one to serve as a temporary vessel until he could lay claim to the Doctor's form. Ironic, then, that this human worked in this capacity, of transporting the injured into the care of human doctors.

But for now, he dwelt as the master of this house of flesh. He would need, however, to maintain the masquerade for a time. And so, while the female human which the vessel's former master called his wife slept, the Master examined the living space the pair called home. Ordinary Earth culture, late 20th century, one of the most turbulent and yet most shallow epochs in human history, as if the humans had surrounded themselves with frivolity in order to divert their attention from what had occurred. A further sign of humanity's foolishness. Why the Doctor bothered with these half evolved creatures who shared an ancestor with chattering monkeys and clumsy apes, he could barely understand. Though he had to admit, humans at times showed signs of promise, that they could aspired to greatness, but all too often, this lasted for only a time, and their own weakness undercut their efforts.

He could feel that weakness already, and he knew he had little time to linger in this form...

\------------------------ 

One of the first things the Master had done, after his initial triumph of the Toclafane and the start of his reign of terror: rigging his music player into the PA system of the Valiant. At odd hours, usually early in the morning or late at night, he effectively turned the thing into his personal jukebox cum radio station, with a literally captive audience, press-ganged soldiers, slave workers and all, having to endure his selections from his personal library. Which to Jack's annoyance did not seem to include any swing-era music, not even any Brian Setzer or Squirrel Nut Zippers, just the kind of inane pop stuff that the kiddies seemed to favor these days, stuff they could sing or bop along to (if the teenyboppers even bopped these days; he remembered Ianto saying the term "teenytexters" applied better, since the teenys texted more than bopped these days). Or the odd showtunes, which made for a change of pace.

Except that he seemed to favor one song in particular, namely, the Thenardiers' big number in _Les Miserables_ (wonder what Vic Hugo would have made of this particular treatment of his magnum opus?), which he would sometimes put on repeat. Bad enough, but then he would start to sing along with the damn thing. Over the PA system. And he insisted on audience participation in the chorus parts.

_"I can't hear you sing-ing,"_ he would call out over the intercom. _"Put a little *spirit* into it, you apes, or it's half-rations for all of you."_

"Try and make me," Jack muttered, shifting against his shackles.

_"That includes *you*, handsome Jack,"_ the Master's voice called out.

"Like he could hear me," Jack replied, closing his eyes, pretending to go to sleep.

The music stopped and an ominous silence ensued. "Okay, maybe I don't like the sound of that," he muttered, thinking sleepy thoughts, warm blankets and soft pillows, a comfortable bed on a cold Cardiff winter morning.

Ianto...

Footsteps clacked on the decking and a bright light shone into Jack's face, making his eyelids glow crimson and yellow. "Asleep already, Jack?" the Master's voice called. "Bit early for you, though perhaps, at your grand age, you need it." Something tugged on his shackles, then someone jerked the back of his neck. His eyes popped open involuntarily, and he stared down at the Master.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue? I didn't hear that manly baritone of yours," the Master crooned.

"I'm good at a lot of things, but singing ain't one of them," Jack retorted.

"Very well, if you won't sing, I'll give you what you want," the Master said, reaching up his sleeve and taking out something long and thin, holding it up in the light of the electric torch that the Master's bodyguard carried: a rusty fillet knife...  



End file.
